# Cease and Desist!

Thomas Wouters (zonny@dds.nl)
Sun, 2 Jun 1996 17:07:55 PDT

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    (No, not more legal advice, just a little moral support (i hope ;-))

    On Sun, 2 Jun 1996, Arthur Chandler wrote:

    [SNIP]

    >   I realize this issue may sound like a laugher. But so have many other
    > cases, which have wound up in court with substantial damages extracted
    > by the offended party.

    I must admit i did laugh, or rather, i had a silly puppy-grin for an hour,
    not at you or your concerns, but more at the familiarity of your
    situation, and all the support you got from the list (It really made me
    feel 'at home' more or less :)

    As for the familiarity, it reminds me of the trouble XS4all (my current
    boss, an Internet Service Provider) and DDS (my former boss, a freenet
    (see .sig)) had with the Church of Scientology (Co$) I'll spare you the
    full story, (instead give you an URL on it, below ;-) but suffice to say
    Co$ tried to intimidate a lot of people. They tried very hard, indeed,
    not just flame mail but visits with cops, claiming to have legal rights
    to do so, et cetera (to be sure, it was all most obviously intimidation,
    they never meant to go to court, but a threat of a 'big' company is very
    scary to a 'little' man.) For instance, they sued only private persons,
    and small ISPs (and XS4all, which isn't small, but they couldn't back out
    of their threats :)

    It all ended rather happily, though - Co$ 'lost' on most accounts (the
    important ones) and a precedent was set (although i'm told it's not a
    'real' precedent in the legal sense) concerning ISPs and the information
    on them -- ISPs were judged to act as a mail service (unresponsible if not
    ingorant of the contents of the messages and errands they run) instead of
    a newspaper (who are very responsible for what they write)

    Want to read the whole story ? (it's fun, i assure you :) see
    http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/fishman/home.html (Don't worry, it's
    english) or you can mail me if you want a (relatively :-) short version.

    As for this 'mystical crossroads', i don't think you have anything to
    fear, (see other posts) but if the bloke keeps at it, i know you can get
    a /lot /of support, and not just from this list. Mail me if you need
    help, i think i know some people who would like a bite from something
    else than Co$ for a change ;-)

    Regards,
    Thomas.

    Thomas Wouters   |   Visit The Digitale City (DDS)   | Forever an Addict to
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